If you break up with someone you met at work or through friends you might still hear about the person, since you have mutual friends, but when you end something with an online person that person disappears off the face of the Earth. You don’t have any mutual acquaintances, you don’t work together, your paths never cross. If you really can’t stand each other, it’s good to never see each other again, but if it’s a less tempestuous break up, then . . . it’s a sad thing.

I always wonder about my ex-girlfriends. I wonder how they are doing (regardless of who broke up with whom). It saddens me to have no way of finding out about them.

Please also keep in mind that women are generally swamped with responses when they first join an online dating site. Your profile is listed at the top of men’s searches, and you are likely to receive many responses. It will be a bit overwhelming, and you really shouldn’t sign up to more than one site to start with. After awhile, the number of responses you receive will probably start to slow down, and you will have perfected your initial response email and gotten a good sense of which men are serious (hint: they generally write really long responses that discuss things you wrote about in your profile) and which men are just looking for a one night relationship (they request many additonal pictures and have a really generic email that they send to all attractive women) and then you can consider signing up to another site.

Best of luck!

And as for lots of different sites, maybe – but I’d be inclined to try internet dating AND charity evenings AND random parties you’re invited to AND going to swimming lessons and so on. Trying lots of different things rather than more of the same would probably have a better effect. After all, some people come across well at parties, others online, others in relaxed social situations.

Just curious.

If you are on for less then six months there’s no chance to actually become a better online dater.